What is the most common mistake people make when treating a Teams or Slack message as if it can never be a record?

The most common mistake is judging a message by its platform instead of its content. People assume that because a tool feels casual, fast, and conversational, nothing said there could rise to the level of a record. In reality, record status depends on what the message documents, not where it was typed.

Why the Platform Doesn’t Decide

Whether something is a record turns on function: does it document a decision, an approval, a transaction, an obligation, or the conduct of business? A chat message that approves a budget, assigns a task, changes a policy, or memorializes a discussion can carry exactly the same evidential weight as an email or a signed memo. The informal format does not lower the stakes.

This is why treating an entire channel as “never a record” is risky. A single message in a long thread may be the only place a decision was actually made or communicated. If that message is auto-deleted on a short retention timer, the organization may lose evidence it is legally required to keep.

Where the Assumption Causes Trouble

• Disposition errors. Default ephemeral or short-retention settings can destroy content that should have been retained, regardless of the platform’s “temporary” feel.
• Discovery and access gaps. Chat content is frequently responsive to litigation, audits, and public-records or FOIA requests. Saying “we don’t keep chat” is rarely a defensible answer.
• Reactions, attachments, and threads. Files shared, edits, and even some reactions may be part of the record and context, not disposable clutter.

The Better Mental Model

Apply a content-and-context test, not a tool-based exemption:

1. Ask what business activity the message documents.
2. Match it to an existing retention schedule, just as you would email.
3. Configure platform retention to align with policy, rather than defaulting to whatever the vendor sets.
4. Train staff that messaging is in scope, so they don’t move sensitive decisions into chat to avoid recordkeeping.

The goal is consistency. A decision is a record whether it lives in email, a document, or a chat window. Channels and tools change constantly; the underlying recordkeeping principles do not. Evaluate the message, not the messenger.